The War Prayer
by Ravenclaw42
Summary: The man destined to become Scar was once a refugee like any other. But long before he gained a wound and a mission that would change his life, he had to learn the hard lesson that not all victims are innocent.
1. Gurney

Disclaimer: I no own. Please to not be suing now.

Warnings: Spoilers for Scar's backstory, but nothing for the rest of the series. Themes of impurity -- rape, violence, revenge, incest, the guilt of the victim, the lesser of two evils.

Author's Note: "Five shades of white" was the original challenge prompt I stole for this one. It suggested a sense of unsure purity to me -- a contrast between true purity and "understood" purity, I suppose. The purity of the victim, which can be no kind of purity at all. It's easy to forgive Scar's brother by allowing oneself to think that he did what he did out of love, but it isn't that simple, is it? And no matter what arguments you make, Scar's brother is anything but pure. The Stone that is his body, that is Scar's arm, is incomplete -- impure. So I played around with that a lot, as well as the idea that Scar's zealotry is impure, that he may not believe every word he says about God's will, because I find it hard to believe that with all he's been through, he hasn't been struck by a crisis of faith at least once.

So. Anyway. Themes of impurity.

Also, a note on the names: I did a lot of research beforehand, and as far as I can tell, Scar's brother's name is Mattias in canon. Everyone else, however, has names made up for this story. Mostly I went with a Hebrew theme, not strictly Biblical as Christianity doesn't exist in the FMA world, but close. Hiram means "exalted brother" or "high born." Baruch "blessed"; Abidan "my father is judge." Gurney is just Gurney, but Sol could be suggestive of Solomon (if you want to think of him as a perversion of a Christian character). And so on.

And the title is from the Mark Twain story of the same name, which is extremely short and can be found with a quick Google search. I highly recommend it, and I can assure you that it will take far less time to read than this monster sucker of a fanfic.  
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Chapter One: Gurney**  
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"Look there. The camp's up ahead!"

"Praise Ishbala..."

A surge of murmured prayer and silent gestures rose around Hiram, digging into his skin like the flying grains in a sandstorm. He closed his eyes in gratefulness, but gave no prayer to his God. After all, he wasn't much better than an exile... like his brother.

Ishbala would never listen to one who had touched such unclean skin.

Under Hiram's supporting arm, Mattias trembled a little at the sound of the worship all around them. A woman nearby fell to her knees, weak with thirst and relief, and raised her clasped hands to the heavens. Mattias's face turned to her, blank eyes staring.

"Come, brother," Hiram whispered. His own throat was raw with thirst and dust, but he wouldn't abandon Mattias to wait at the back of the water line alone. They would find an empty space at the back of the little encampment first, where maybe one or two outcasts would already be hiding from the other refugees under an overhang of the cliff that towered over them all, and Hiram would make his brother wait while he got water for them both. And then, blessed rest.

The encampment was maybe a hundred yards away. It looked older than the last one the people of Hiram's village had passed through -- shoddier, more run-down. Lives had been born and reborn here, if only for the little while they'd been allowed to stay in one place. New lives created, new families coalesced, thrown together out of desperation. Refugees were normal humans forced to live mayfly lives, born, married and dead in the blink of an eye.

And there _had_ been death here. Hiram could feel that, too, not only in his mind and his bones but in the electric heat that sheened the visible edges of his brother's skin like so much lamp oil, burning with the forbidden light.

Hiram shifted his grip on his brother and reached over with his free hand to pull up Mattias' hood, tugging it down so it covered his face.

"I can't see," Mattias protested weakly, reaching up as if to push the hood back.

Hiram gabbed his wrist. "No," he rasped. "I'll lead you. And pull your sleeves down."

Mattias' resistance was fragile and fleeting. He relented, head and shoulders sagging at another small defeat, and covered his marked wrists with his sleeves. The symbols of his exile vanished. Hiram breathed easier.

The refugee camp was still and silent. No scout came to meet them and take count of their number or tend their wounded. As they approached the refugee camp, an old man broke away from the head of the group and ran for the first tent, crying out with all that was left of his being -- and in the next moment, he was silent, and a cloud of red was dispersing into the dry air, feeding moisture into the hungry ground.

The report of the shot that had taken the old man down echoed against the cliff-face. Everyone froze, but there was no outburst of shock, no weeping and wailing. A blankness descended on some faces, a look of resignation on others. Mattias shivered again against Hiram, but made no move to look up, nor even to ask what was happening. He couldn't have seen the old man die.

Seeing didn't matter anymore, to any of them. Death wasn't something you believed in, it was just something you knew.

Hiram glanced up -- no visible snipers on the cliff. The exit wound from the shot had been horizontal. He started to scan the tents --

"There," whispered a man a few feet ahead of them. Hiram followed his pointing finger and saw dark figures moving in the shadow of the cliff, emerging from behind and inside the tents on the edge of the camp. As they passed out from under the line of shadow and into the late afternoon sun, Hiram could see that they were not military -- they were dressed in an ill-informed assortment of Ishbalan clothes, most worn wrong or hanging loose or layered on top of something foreign, mismatched styles of the western and northern countries. The Ishbalan clothes were all of finest quality, while the foreign clothes beneath looked old and worn.

Bandits. Freeloaders. Highway entrepreneurs. Hiram had heard stories but had hoped to reach one of the secret camps in the hills unhindered. But Ishbala must have stopped listening to Hiram's prayers long ago, because here they were, and a man was already dead.

Mattias feebly tugged his sleeves further down over his hands, trying to hide the glow that wanted to escape. His markings did that sometimes when there was death nearby. Hiram's fingers tingled unpleasantly at the touch.

One of the bandits came closer to the huddling group of refugees, clearly the leader -- he wore mostly Amestrian clothes, with only a red wrap (tied in as neat and correct a knot under the arm as the most respectable Ishbalan could hope for) as a concession to all the loot he'd gathered. Hiram recognized his pants and boots as Amestrian military issue, but they were ill-fitting, most likely stolen off the body of a fallen soldier. His skin was the typical Ishbalan golden brown, but his dark eyes betrayed some border-mixed ancestry, maybe from the Lior or Faradn regions. A couple of the men behind him were Drachman-dark, skin as black as the cave networks they lived in, suggesting a northern taint to all of the banditsí blood.

"Sorry about that," said the leader. He had a deceptively amiable face and average build. "Sol gets a little jumpy when people run at him these days. Name's Gurney. Treat us right and me and my men will be your protectors in this little sanctuary. Just, uh... don't give us any reason to get jumpy."

The man called Sol grinned, something like glee brightening his face.

Gurney smiled, showing teeth, and it was the normalcy of the expression that scared Hiram more than anything. Hiram glanced at the body of the old man sprawled undignified in the sand, a twisted twig of a thing -- barely human. Hiram remembered his face now. He had been a fruit vendor. His wife had died a month before the war broke out, quietly, in her sleep.

Hiram had once or twice overheard the old man thanking Ishbala for the mercy He had shown her.

Gurney was meandering through the crowd of statue-still Ishbalans, dozens of pairs of red eyes following his every move. He stopped abruptly and turned to speak to another old man, not quite as ancient as the one now bleeding out into the sand, but with enough wrinkles to look respectable. "What might make a good pledge of our newfound partnership, huh, Gramps?"

So Gurney understood enough to know that the elders were the leaders. That wasn't good.

The old man -- Daoud, Hiram recalled from the haze of memory that was the time before the war -- met Gurney's eyes with all the dignity that was left to him, and said nothing.

Gurney grinned again. "You want me to kill you now, that's fine," he said. "I'm accommodating, don't think I'm not. But that's not what I asked. So, anyone got any ideas?" He looked around, met hard gazes everywhere, and laughed. It sounded real.

"We don't have anything, sir," said a woman finally. Her eyes were closed tight, her head down. "We left everything behind. Please."

Hiram held his breath. She shouldn't have spoken. Shouldn't have begged.

Gurney's smile softened and he walked over to the woman, putting a hand under her chin and lifting her face to his. Setting her jaw, she opened her eyes.

He looked on her with such fondness, such... not quite compassion. It was something else, indefinable. Possession...? "I love that color," he muttered, lightly touching the corner of her eye with one finger. The finger twisted up and he lifted his hand away, turning to the crowd, that wide grin back, a little feral this time, and Hiram could see that he wasn't such a good guy after all, could see beneath the mask of sanity to --

"This good woman has offered herself," Gurney said, loud enough to be heard by all, jovial as anything. He put his arm around her and pulled her towards him.

A man next to her, probably her husband, cried out wordlessly and reached out to grab his wife, to punch Gurney, something, anything, but a single shot rang out (Sol, or one of the others?) and the stillness devolved into chaos in a second. Everyone shouted at once, everyone swung out, ran, fell, tripped, was trampled. Hiram pulled Mattias close and did the only thing he knew to do, which was to fall to his knees and curl over his brother like a protective stone, while Mattias shook under him and wept and cursed God. Hiram felt blows on his back and arms and head, felt blood trickle down his neck, but there was no pain -- someone else's blood, maybe. He let the fight roll over him, let the bandits' tanrum run its course. When he tried to glance up he saw others like himself, curled on the ground with their hands over their heads, only trying to live.

Gunshots echoed -- one, two, five. With the fifth shot there was a scream, and then, silence. The struggle had lasted less than ten seconds.

Hiram dared to look up.

The woman who had spoken first was dead, the light of life still fading from her wide-open eyes, a small hole in her forehead. She lay face-up and Hiram was only grateful that he couldnít see the exit wound. Sol stood over her.

Sol straightened, blew on his gun, wiped some blood off the barrel with his sleeve. He turned to Gurney, who glared at him, and shrugged. "She made me jumpy," he rasped.

"Just don't do it again," said Gurney.

The woman's husband broke from the crowd and ran to her, a sound erupting slow and high from his throat, a sound that had no name except a living death of the spirit. It was the sound of being buried alive, or being destroyed from the soul down. He fell over her and kept making the sound, only slowing once to draw breath. A few people made signs to Ishbala, but most only looked on, too deadened with their own horror to empathize with his.

Gurney winced and gestured to Sol, and in less than a moment the husband was out of his misery and joining his wife.

"They're probably the lucky ones," Gurney said reflectively.

He picked out others. Five women, four of them married, one the eldest but unmarried daughter of a widowed mother, who knew better than to scream when the bandits pulled her child out of the crowd. One of the men passed near Hiram without looking down at him, followed a minute later by Sol, who paused. Hiram watched the gunman's booted feet, back tensing against whatever might come -- he could handle being kicked, being spat on, anything, as long as Mattias was...

But Mattias had seen Sol's boots stop in front of them. He let out a quiet moan. Hiram tried to silence him, but it was too late.

"That a girl begging for attention down there?" Sol asked, almost snickering. He kicked Mattias' shin, not too hard. "Get up. Both of you."

Hiram hesitated, but as Sol drew his foot back for a harder kick, Gurney's voice interrupted. "I've got it," said the leader.

Gurney knelt, bringing his face into Hiram's field of view. "Hey," said Gurney. "Who is it? Wife? Mother? It's honorable to protect her, no fault against you there. But I think standing up would be a good idea, all right?"

Hiram didn't think he could feel any more nauseous; he couldn't meet anyone's eyes as he drew himself to his feet, not Gurney's and certainly not his brother's. He helped Mattias up and realized too late that the hood was not pulled entirely down over his face.

Gurney made a small tutting sound in his throat. "Ah hah, a rare find, gentlemen," he said, that slow, toothy smile returning. Hiram bit his tongue. Gurney brushed Mattias' hood back and cupped his chin in one fluid motion, forcing the Ishbalan to meet his darker eyes. "Hello, exile," he said softly.

He understood the markings. Hiram went cold.

"Say something," Gurney commanded.

"He can't speak," Hiram interjected quickly. He didn't care what happened to him anymore.

"Nice try," Gurney replied, unfazed. At the slightest nod from Gurney, Sol gave Mattias one swift, sharp kick to the shin -- the same shin he'd hit before. Mattias cried out and staggered forward -- Hiram barely managed to catch him.

"Pretty high for a young man like yourself," Gurney noted as if nothing untoward had happened. His eyes flickered down. "Missing something?"

"Leave him alone," Hiram gasped, struggling to hold Mattias up. His brother's knees were buckling, from pain or exhaustion or starvation or some combination, Hiram didn't know. "Leave him alone, he's done nothing to you."

Gurney shrugged. "It doesn't matter, I'm already intrigued. What's your name?" This he directed at Hiram.

In answer, Hiram spat in his face.

Sol jerked forward, but Gurney put one hand flat on his henchman's chest and wiped his cheek with the other. Sol stood down reluctantly. Gurney wiped his hand on his faded blue pants. "Nice," he said. "I like these two. The exile especially. I can only assume you two are close, if you'd risk your eternal soul to take care of a sinner like this." Gurney smiled at Hiram, genuine respect mixed with something... else in his face. "Lovers? No... I see a little resemblance, here..." He touched Hiram and Mattiasí cheeks at the same time, tracing the high bone there, but while Hiram jerked his head back, Mattias could only suffer the touch, shivering.

"Brothers, I think," Gurney said knowingly. "No one else left? Parents gone to Ishbala and left you boys alone? But you're old enough to take care of yourselves. No kids, then, no wives?"

Mattias jerked at that, despite Hiram's attempt to hold him still.

"She..." Mattias whispered, "she... was..."

Gurney leaned down, close to Mattias face, looking earnestly into the broken man's glazed eyes. "She's why you're here now? Hm?"

"It wasn't her fault," Mattias breathed, a tear leaking unnoticed from the corner of one eye.

"I'm sure it wasn't," Gurney murmured comfortingly. "I'm sure it was yours."

Mattias closed his eyes and made a sound somewhere between a keen and a groan, too close to the sound the grieving man had made minutes ago -- too close. Hiram had been lulled by Gurney's gentle tone, but he took a violent step backwards at the bandit's cruel words, dragging his brother with him. "Be quiet," he hissed at Mattias, shaking him as gently as he could, trying to snap him out of whatever demon of madness had seized him. "Quiet, brother, do you understand?"

"Personally, I don't think he understands much," Gurney said, amusement evident in his tone.

"He understands more than you," Hiram snapped without thinking.

Something twisted beneath Gurney's facade of nonchalance. Hiram felt the chill of horror slicing all the way to his bones this time, knowing that he'd overstepped some boundary, crossed some invisible line that could never be uncrossed for as long as both he and Gurney lived. He'd forfeited his immunity; Gurney was no longer interested in keeping him whole.

And he'd forfeited any chance he might have had of staying with his brother through whatever was about to happen. Hiram could see it in Gurney's eyes, the sudden burning need to separate the two loving brothers, to destroy anything honorable that could exist between a castrated exile and his stoic, long-suffering caretaker. He could see the need to break anything that wasn't already shattered in Mattias, and to break the bones if not the mind of Hiram himself.

Hiram didn't see the signal, but there must have been one, because the next thing he knew was world-shattering pain and an explosion of light, and he was falling. When he could open his eyes again he realized that Sol had gotten behind him and snapped his left arm like a twig. He was on his knees, Sol still behind him, holding his arm. He also thought he might have vomited, judging by the taste in his mouth. When he managed to look up he saw that two other bandits had already dragged Mattias away from him and were holding him upright before Gurney, who was touching his face so possessively, so hungrily...

"Leave him alone," Hiram gasped again. His voice broke, but he didn't care. "He hasn't done anything."

The devil's grin flashed across Gurney's face quick as lightning and he yanked on the front of Mattias' robe just as fast, tearing one seam and revealing a sunlight-starved chest riddled with the brands of guilt. "These are telling me he's done plenty," said Gurney, running a hand over the flat planes of skin and symbols. He tugged the ragged opening down further to reveal the edge of the scar tissue that started around Mattias' navel and continued down to his knees in some places. Everything between had been torn away, inside and out, ruthlessly, by some invisible force -- some power of evil so great that even Mattias could not describe it when Hiram dared to ask, except to say that it had the bluest eyes, and the face of a child...

Hiram knew he was sobbing, but it was a distant knowledge, like the pain that flared through his broken arm every time he tried to twist away from his captor. Just as he got enough leverage with one leg to push himself to his feet, Sol's knee jerked up and met his lower back with a resounding crack, knocking him down face-first towards the ground. He barely caught himself on his one good hand, just short of the vile puddle in front of him. His breath came shallowly for a moment, his vision blurring at the edges.

"Stop," he tried to say, but only a harsh breath came out, which he had to struggle to draw in again.

"What I love about exiles," Hiram could indistincely hear Gurney saying somewhere above him, "is how you people with your God of light and mercy can honestly make yourselves believe that they don't exist. You know how fucked up that is?" Hiram struggled to raise his salt- stung eyes, just in time to see Gurney shove a random Ishbalan, hard. She stumbled, but stood her ground, stolidly looking away from Mattias and his molestors. "See? Isn't that great, big bro? Or are you little bro?" Gurney nudged Hiram with a steel- enforced boot. "You're bigger, but that's what happens when your balls get ripped off, I guess."

Hiram wasn't sure what it was about that statement that made him snap. Maybe the suggestion that his brother was less than a man, or less than a human, or maybe the fact that Gurney spoke like he had any idea what he was talking about, like Mattias' crime had been something trivial -- turning lead into gold, animals into monsters -- something not worthy of the Grand Arcanum. But it had been love, _love,_ and Mattias had been broken a long time before he had allowed his body to be mutilated or his country to fall into chaos.

Gurney knew _nothing._

Hiram heard himself screaming, felt the break in his arm twist and splinter as he wrenched it out of Sol's slackened grasp. He was up and running in a second, berserker rage tainting his vision red. Gurney's face filled his eyes and mind, that little smile flickering dead with a hint of genuine surprise and concern at Hiram's outburst --

Hiram didn't notice the shots fired around him, didn't notice the bandits rushing him from all sides, and he wouldn't have noticed his own death had it come swiftly enough. His fist connected solidly with Gurney's face, high on the cheek, and Hiram felt something crack beneath his knuckles and the vibration of Gurney's scream sang along his arm, and it felt so good to _hurt_ him, just that, nothing more, just to _kill_ --

Some reflexive resistance to such violent thoughts stayed Hiram's next blow long enough for the other bandits to reach him. After that the pain was overwhelming, and he gave his mind over to the black without a fight.

The last thing he glimpsed as he collapsed was the look of anguish on Mattias' face.  
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	2. Mattias

Disclaimer: I no own. Please to not be suing now.

Warnings: Spoilers for Scar's backstory, but nothing for the rest of the series. Themes of impurity -- rape, violence, revenge, incest, the guilt of the victim, the lesser of two evils.

Author's Note: This has proven an extremely difficult story to write, if only because it requires me to maintain a certain mindset that is uncomfortable if not downright nauseating. I think it's one of the strongest things I've ever written, though. In this chapter especially, I've played around with some uncomfortable ideas about the relationships between emotional closeness, innocent sexuality, incest and rape. Hopefully, the subtleties will play out the way I meant them to.  
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Chapter Two: Mattias**  
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He was walking towards something... someone, a woman in the distance, but the longer he walked the further away she got, and he kept stumbling, though he couldn't tell why. Something was... off. He felt unbalanced. He tried to hold his arms out to regain his balance and he looked down and there was only one, the right, not his own, and the left was simply gone --

Awareness of _severing_ flared through him; his arm was gone, cut off, he was bleeding out and the _pain_

Hiram woke with a start. "Mattias," he gasped.

"You should be glad no one else heard that."

Hiram rolled his head to the left to see who'd spoken. The motion caused his eyes to water and his insides to feel like they'd just turned inside out. He groaned.

A large hand touched his forehead, uncomfortably warm against his already-fevered skin. Hiram forced his breathing to slow and his eyes to focus on the strangely familiar shape -- a man kneeling next to him, broad face, like...

"Teacher," he said hoarsely. "How..."

"I arrived here with the last group passing this way," said Baruch, the Master of the temple in Hiram's village, Hiram's mentor in the years of innocence when he'd still wanted to follow in Baruch's footsteps. "Two weeks ago. We haven't been allowed to move on. Gurney's men have killed a few of us, detained the others."

Hiram exhaled. "Mattias -- is he --"

Baruch shook his head. "Your brother hasn't been seen." He lowered his voice, sorrow and apology thick in his tone as he added, "And you are lucky, my son, that no one else has heard you call him by the name Ishbala gave him. You must leave the matter be. He is only exile, now."

Baruch's words cut deep. Hiram closed his eyes and suppressed the overwhelming urge to scream that Ishbala chose nothing, that his parents had named Mattias after their family's greatest ancestor and that it was just a name, nothing more -- that he could and should be left that much, at least, if not his dignity or his country or his lover or his life.

But society and faith dictated the law, and deep down some part of Hiram still believed. To be branded exile was to have forfeited the love of Ishbala and all the gifts He bestowed on mankind. Exiles were nameless. It was only right.

Still, Mattias was only that -- Mattias. Nothing could change that for Hiram, ever.

Baruch rested a hand on Hiram's good shoulder briefly. "Your brother was a good man," he said softly.  
_  
Is,_ thought Hiram.

Hiram took a deep, aching breath, opened his eyes and changed the subject. "How long have I been unconscious?" He looked around as much as he could without lifting his head, noting that he was inside a small tent, alone but for Baruch. The opening of the tent was to his right -- he could just make out a sliver of graying pre-dawn sky.

"Only one night," said Baruch.

"Ma -- my brother -- where was he taken?"

"Gurney's tent. North edge of camp. But you won't get in, and it would do you no good even if you could. Gurney will let him out when he's finished with him."

Hiram tried to convince himself that it was only the broken arm that made him feel so ill. "Gurney wants to break him," he muttered, needing to explain, to justify, to... rage, he supposed, against the unfairness of it, except that he didn't have the energy to rage. So his tone, meant to be angry, came out merely dead. "There's nothing left to break," he said.

Baruch shook his head sadly. "There is," he said. "You can't see it because it _is_ you. If Gurney has his way, your brother will not know you the next time you see him. Gurney doesn't want to hurt him -- _you_ were the one who defied him. You're the one he wants."  
_  
But he took Mattias anyway,_ Hiram thought numbly. _Because he's a prize. A gelding exile. No resistance from any quarter._

Hiram closed his eyes and felt around within himself for some vestige of surprise or anger or grief. Nothing. Numb.

Numbness and exhaustion, he realized suddenly -- exhaustion beyond any he'd felt before in a lifetime of war and pain. Constant pain throughout his body kept him from resting, kept him from relaxing so he could heal. His broken arm, though set and bound, glowed red-hot under the skin with a fever of torn nerves and damaged muscle. He thought about trying to move and realized that none of his limbs would respond to any command he gave them.

He let out a deep breath. "If I sleep," he said quietly, "swear you'll bring M -- my brother here when Gurney lets him go."

Baruch hesitated, then said, "I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"My son... you should understand the gravitas of exile more than anyone. I cannot acknowledge... I have said and done more than I should here, with you. In the eyes of Ishbala, comforting a fellow soul is acceptable. If you have the strength to atone for your contact with your brother, you are safe. You are his blood. I am not. I cannot touch him."

"Stop," Hiram said softly. The word came no easier to him this time than it had with the wind knocked out of him, bleeding into the sand.

Baruch pressed his hands into his temples as if he had a headache. Hiram had no sympathy if he did. "I will wake you and direct you to him..." he said at length.

"Just wake me," Hiram interrupted sharply. "I'll find him."

The atmosphere between them went as stale as if it had never been friendly in their lives. "I wish I could do more," Baruch said stiffly.

"No, you don't." Hiram closed his eyes and turned his face away, forcing himself to relax and let the pain flow through his body, hoping the heartbeat- rhythm that pumped the ache through his veins would lull him to sleep.

Baruch stood. "Goodbye, my son."

"None of yours," Hiram muttered.

Above him, Hiram heard Baruch sigh and imagined the gesture of blessing the old temple master was probably making over him right then. "Peace be upon you," Baruch murmured, and another short prayer. And then his footsteps retreated through the tent flap and he was gone.

Hiram opened his eyes and stared out at the lightening sky.

"His name is Mattias," he whispered to no one.

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It was dark again when Hiram woke, more rested, the pain in his arm abated. He didn't feel any warmer than the desert air ghosting over his dry face. No fever, no infection. Good.

Thinking back on it later, he couldn't remember much of what had happened in the next few hours. Images survived, branded deeper than the ink of Mattias' tattoos or the jagged scar that shaped his identity for the last years of his life, but Hiram couldn't remember the moments of transition between the images. Couldn't remember the cool breeze of the desert night on his bruised skin or his labored breathing as he stood, refusing Baruch's help, and pushed past his former teacher to head north through the twisted maze of tents and small fires.

He remembered finding Mattias, though -- remembered that more clearly than anything else, probably. The pathways between tents opened up into a wide space towards the cliff, a small area that was always in shade even in the hours of high heat; the natural little open-air amphitheatre served as a refuge for the masses during the times of the day when tent roofs were no better than fire pit covers, retaining heat and baking those inside. He remembered rounding a corner and seeing his brother crumpled on the ground in the center of the hollow, curled on his side like an infant, deep in shade but visible enough... visible enough. The red stood out, his old tunic (torn) and the blood beneath it. He didn't look much more human than the old man outside the camp who'd been taken out by Sol. For a cold second Hiram found himself wondering what he would do if Mattias was dead. He couldn't dig a grave with one good arm, and no one else would help him.

Walking towards Mattias (couldn't feel his legs, couldn't tell if he was even giving his body the order to move forward), memories of youth flashed across Hiram's mind -- Mattias, twelve to Hiram's six, picking him up and spinning him until Hiram felt sick and screamed to be put down and couldn't wait to do it again. Thirteen and seven, Mother dead in the temple, Mattias not praying, just watching, and Hiram had been tearful and so scared each passing second that Mattias would be rejected by Ishbala for his dry, distant eyes, until days later, when Hiram had heard Mattias strangling harsh sobs in a pillow and Hiram had fallen on his knees praising God that his brother could still feel. Sixteen and ten, Mattias defending Hiram against an older boy, the first fight Hiram had ever seen, and Mattias had gotten a bloody nose. The color of blood against that familiar olive skin, the smell -- Hiram still hadn't gotten used to them, and prayed he never would. Hiram had thrown up after that day when he was ten, walking home from the temple, intercepted by an older boy and rescued by his brother. The other boy had knocked Mattias down in front of him, kicked him, cursed him, while Hiram had watched and done nothing. What could he have done? He didn't understand until later that it wasn't his fault, that Mattias had been proposing unpopular and unsettling ideas at the Master's house where he had been taken in as a pupil to learn books and writing and numbers, and that some of the other students had not taken kindly to Mattias' impromptu lectures. Even after he found out the truth, some part of Hiram still thought it was his fault that Mattias had gotten hurt.

Mattias, twenty-four -- Hiram, seventeen. Hiram hadn't been able to find his brother since the previous morning, and had started panicking because of the confluence of abstract concepts and ominous asides Mattias had been making for weeks, ever since _her_ death; but it wasnít until late afternoon that Hiram remembered a place they'd frequented when they were younger, that Mattias had still gone to study up until very recently. It was towards the outskirts of town.

Some intuition in Hiram had clicked that day, a feeling of awful truth that wasn't some archaic prediction in a religious text because it wasn't about some untold event in the future, it was _now._ The world, Hiram had thought, was surely ending. So he ran.

The smell of blood on his brother never changed, no matter what happened to his body.

They were eerily similar, the days Hiram had found his brother gelded by his own sin and the other time, five years later, when Mattias had committed his final heresy and walked naked into the fire, tears in his eyes. The second time, Mattias had not been injured... and yet, Hiram had still smelled the blood on him, and in all the time since then the scent had never completely faded.

Hiram found himself on his knees next to Mattias in the small hollow under the cliff, lights from the small cooking fires some distance behind him. He knelt facing his brother and the dark.

A hand on Mattias' shoulder elicited no response. Hiram shook him slightly, and when Mattias still didn't move, Hiram tugged gently and turned him onto his back.

The bile rose, scorching his throat, and the smell of blood overwhelmed him. But he did not vomit; he refused to be that ten-year-old again, convinced that it was _his_ fault his brother always got hurt, _his_ fault that there was blood on Mattias' hands and face and soaking through in patches around his wrists and pelvis and --

Because it wasn't his fault. It was Gurney's fault, and the war's fault, and maybe even Mattias' fault. No one and everyone was to blame. But a small voice at the back of his mind still said, _Gurney only wanted to hurt you, and this is how he got the job done. See how well it worked?  
_  
Hiram put a hand hesitantly on Mattias' face, getting tacky, half-dried blood on his fingers. Mattias jerked a little at the touch, and his breathing changed -- became quicker and more shallow. Slowly, like butterflies pinned but not yet dead, his eyelids flickered open.

For a second he and Hiram stared at each other, a blankness overtaking them. So much to process. Too much. Hiram wondered if Mattias was remembering anything or if he really was that broken, that lost to the world -- did he remember Mother's funeral? Did he remember Hiram's birth? Or was all that was left to him the memory of whatever he'd seen that day, with his dead lover laid out on the floor and the walls glowing with a bloody light?

Hiram moved his hand again, touched Mattias' cheek, higher, where sand clung to a patch of raw skin that had stopped beading with blood a good while ago.

The touch broke whatever spell hung over them. Mattias' face contorted suddenly with pain and confusion and pathetic hopelessness, and he began to cry, the ugly, uncontrollable kind of crying that came with death and degradation. The last time Hiram had heard Mattias cry like that was in his room that night a week after Mother's funeral. Hiram remembered the way he'd praised Ishbala back then for showing Mattias the way of purity, of proper feeling, and he felt sick with himself for ever having thought so lowly of his brother as to believe that there was ever a point when Mattias _hadn't_ been ravaged by grief. Hiram could barely even bring himself to think of Ishbala now, much less praise Him. Praise Him for what? For sending divine punishment to the young man now staring into the middle distance and choking on his own spit and phlegm from the tears that wouldnít stop? For creating the situations that birthed true madmen like Gurney and sad, violent people like Sol? For taking away Mattias' name and gender and leaving him shredded like so much meat?

Mattias wasn't making a sound, only the occassional breathy gasp as he tried to suck in air between spasms. When Hiram heard a sob, it took him a moment to realize that it was his own voice.

It took Hiram the better part of an hour to coax Mattias onto his side, to let the mucus clear from his air passages and allow him to breathe again, and then to help him gingerly to his feet and, inch by grueling inch, back to Hiram's tent. It was still empty when they got there -- Baruch was long gone, of course, but no one else had commandeered it either, which was a sign of just how taboo the presence of the brothers had become. Normally, if there was room to spread, the Ishbalans knew how to use it. To leave a whole tent to two men was unthinkable.

Unless those men weren't considered men any more, but demons.  
_  
The only demon here lives on the north edge of this camp,_ Hiram thought grimly, making Mattias undress and lay down on his stomach on top of the coarse blanket Hiram had been sleeping on earlier. Mattias didn't resist anything. More than likely he couldn't.

Baruch had left some things... another blanket, clean bandages, some tough cloth and sturdy sticks in case Hiram had to make a splint. Water that had probably been hot an hour ago, but which was now only a little hotter than the surrounding air. Food. Hiram was almost ready to forgive Baruch, not for being thoughtful or kind, because those were self-serving things that went back to gaining grace before Ishbala -- not for that, but for the fact that by leaving medical supplies and food, Baruch had at least conceded that Mattias was still human. If that much of a concession was the best Hiram could hope for, he wasn't going to turn his nose up at it. Settling Mattias as much as he could, he tore off a strip of cloth, soaked it in the warm water and began to clean his brother up.

It was slow going with one good arm, constantly having to tell Mattias to move this way or that, knowing how much pain it caused him. There was the indignity of it all... Hiram wanted to be able to tell his brother to roll up in a corner somewhere and hide -- wanted to join him, really. If they could make themselves small targets, if they could protect each other as they'd always done... if they could just have a moment's peace to rest and regain a little humanity...

Instead, Mattias lay spread-eagled on the ground while Hiram, knowing what Mattias had just come away from but knowing how much worse it would be if he didn't get this over with immediately, washed the blood and other substances from every part of his brother's body. Mattias was limp under his ministrations, and never once said a word.

When Hiram finished there was almost no part of Mattias left unbandaged. Thankfully the splint materials went unused -- the only deep wounds Gurney had inflicted were sexual and mental. Some fairly rough abrasions made Mattias' back look like ground meat, but Hiram had picked out the slivers of stone and washed out the dust, and as it hadn't had time to get infected yet, he guessed it would heal intact.

All of Mattias' body would heal. His mind was another matter.

Hiram stayed awake until Mattias fell asleep, watching the little catches in his brother's breathing slowly even out as the breaths became deeper. Healthier. Even when Mattias turned his head and opened his mouth ever so slightly -- he could only allow himself to relax during in the deepest of dreamless slumbers -- Hiram's gaze remained on his brother's back, tracing the slow rise and fall.

Imagining the markings beneath.

-------

He woke for the third time to a touch.

It was a soft touch, but abated pain and enough sleep had made him alert again, and the softest touch was all that was necessary to snap him from darkness to light. He left his eyes closed for a moment, not daring to startle whoever waited for him in the world of the waking.

With the touch came a voice, even softer, and familiar. It felt like he hadn't heard it in years, though it could only have been two days.

"Wake up," whispered Mattias. "Wake up, little brother, wake up. Please. Please."

It was a mantra, on and off in volume and frequency, not pleading, not emotive, but something solid to cling to. Something to say, something to wait for -- to hope for. Hiram wanted to go back to sleep for a guilty second when he heard it, remembering in agonizing detail exactly all the unwanted places his hands had been just a few hours ago. He wanted Mattias to be angry with him, not this... using him like a lifeline, using him like an object of worship. And, in a fit of intense selfishness, he simply didn't want to deal with it. Not now.

Mattias didn't stop. At length, Hiram opened his eyes. He forced his feelings away, made himself detached. He made himself stone, then and there, realizing that Mattias might dash himself to death trying to get at him and not caring.

"Brother, please. Wake up. Wake up." Mattias' eyes were fixed on Hiram's arm, not his face. Hiram had a second to assess the situation -- he'd lain down sometime last night, facing Mattias but not too close, and he knew he hadn't moved. Mattias had, though. The blanket on which he'd slept was askew, bunched to one side, as if Mattias had tossed and turned on it -- but he couldn't have moved that much, not without waking up or crying out. Now he sat cross-legged next to Hiram, hands fluttering over Hiram's arm and side and chest, always stopping just before his face and returning downward. Not shaking, not prodding. Just touching, barely more than breaths of wind. His mouth kept moving even when no sound came out.

It took Hiram a moment to realize that there was blood spotted on Mattias' blanket and that some of his bandages were either loose or soaked through with crimson. Hiram immediately made a move to sit up, his first inclination being anger at his brother for aggravating his wounds.

Mattias jerked back violently at the movement, his eyes widening and his mouth opening in a mockery of a scream. No sound emerged, but the terror on his face was enough. He was still too weak to get up and run, though, which Hiram gave rueful thanks for.

Hiram slowed, rising unthreateningly from the ground into a sitting position. "It's just me," he said firmly when he was upright, holding up his empty hands, at least insofar as he could move his left arm. "Brother. Mattias. It's me. I'm awake."

Mattias's breath was shallow still, but his mouth closed and he seemed to focus on Hiram for the first time. "Hiram," he said, barely more than a breath with the shape of a name. "Hiram."

"It's me," Hiram repeated. He held out his right hand, palm down, and barely rested it on Mattias' shoulder for a moment, a life-reaffirming contact more than anything else. Mattias' shoulders were warm... and one of the few areas of his body without tattoos.

Hesitantly, Mattias crept one hand up to his shoulder, touching Hiram's fingers first and then tracing up the back of his hand, mapping the familiar strength there. Inch by inch Mattias felt along the side of Hiram's arm, raising his other hand to do the same thing on the other side, his touches slowly becoming less frightened and more firm. Watching Mattias' face (for Mattias still wouldn't meet his eyes), Hiram felt the pull of old love softening his heart, breaking down his stone wall a chip at a time. For as long as he could remember, Mattias had been with him. Not just near him, but there for him when it mattered (and sometimes when it didn't), to share... well, pain, grief and loss, of course, things with which both brothers were intimate, but also joy, of which there was precious little in their lives and which needed to be shared to grow.

Mattias was the only person Hiram cared about protecting anymore. Compared to saving Ishbal, saving his own brother seemed like a trifle of a task. But it was everything. Everything. It was Hiram's all-too-narrow world, small not because he was small-minded but because every other door had been closed to him by war and death. Mattias was his only family. His only blood. If he couldn't protect anything else...

Mattias' eyes were flat as the red stone of the cliff outside, his exploring hands betraying his disconnection from the world, if it took him this long to recognize his own little brother.

Hiram choked on his own self-loathing then, eyes and throat burning. Sitting across from him was the result of his protection, bleeding through cracked scabs in half a dozen unspeakable places. Mad with loss and needless hurt. Branded blood-deep with sin.

Mattias' hands finally reached Hiram's shoulders, then his neck, then his face, paper-dry palms pressing against damp cheeks as firmly as any touch Hiram had felt yet. "Don't," Mattias whispered, focusing on the tears. He moved his hands to wipe them away, thumbs fumbling high against Hiram's cheekbones, trying to stem the flow. "No, don't cry, don't cry. Brother..."

"Stop," Hiram choked out, grabbing Mattias' left wrist with his good hand. Mattias stiffened but didn't pull away. 'Your injuries," he began, scrambling for a legitimate excuse to make this impersonal again, and easier.

Mattias cut him off with a sudden shifting movement, clumsy with pain and uncertainty, but determined nonetheless. With his knees half-under him at strange angles, Mattias clutched Hiram's upper arms with a childish possessiveness perverted by the muscular strength of a full-grown man, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. And Mattias leaned in, and he kissed Hiram.

Not quite full on the mouth but not quite at the corner; close enough to brush noses. It was a violent kiss, loving, maybe, but in all the wrong ways, and it left an impression of... the purest of impurities... a feeling Hiram couldn't shake for days -- maybe even years -- even though he pushed Mattias away almost instantly, nauseated by the insane kaleidoscope of emotion playing itself out within him. The confusion he'd like to feel was tempered by an understanding he didn't want; horror cut with attraction that bred more horror and love and regret and somewhere under the surface, in the bloody depths, a truth that couldn't bear consideration. Hiram found for a second that he couldn't breathe, not because he was overwhelmed or his heart was pounding but because he'd simply forgotten _how._ He choked on the forgetfulness, swallowed it whole, welcomed it. He didn't want to understand himself any more.

"By all that is holy under the eyes of Ishbala, never, ever do that again," he heard himself telling Mattias in a harsh voice. His brother's eyes were full of blank fear. Hiram realized that he was bruising Mattias' left arm in the same place Mattias had bruised both of his. He let go abruptly.

He loved his brother. He always had. He always would.

"Hiram," whispered Mattias, reaching out again. Hiram slapped his hand out of the air. "Hiram," Mattias kept saying, tears of frustration welling up unnoticed; his tone was desperate. "I love you, do you understand? I love you, I --"

Hiram struggled onto his knees and from there to his feet, stumbling backwards away from his wide-eyed brother, completely at a loss for what to feel. _Is this what Gurney did?_ he wondered suddenly, bile thick in his already-swollen throat. A fire burned in his chest. _It's not what Baruch thought, it's not a separation. Gurney didn't take Mattias away from me. He told Mattias to take me back..._

The sheer art and cruelty of it took a moment to hit, but when it did, it brought Hiram to his knees. He staggered and fell, still facing Mattias still but now several feet away.

"I brought her back for you, too," Mattias cried, or rather rasped, his voice broken from screaming. He could barely make sound, but the impact of his words was strong enough.

"This isn't you," Hiram managed through the bitter nothing in his chest and the blinding salt burn in his eyes. "This isn't you, Mattias, wake up --"

"I loved her so much and I wanted to give you --"

"-- stop doing this to me, you don't know what you're saying, you --"

"-- you save me every day, little brother, you know all of me, all of --"

"-- ENOUGH!"

Hiram surged back to his feet with that word, voice breaking, stone wall shattering beyond recognition. Mattias' whisper-screams faded to nothing. He sat there staring up at Hiram, legs sprawled beneath him awkwardly, like a child's. He shook a little.

"What did Gurney say to you?" Hiram asked at length, arms held tightly over his chest as if holding in his heart.

"Gurney?" Mattias whispered. His eyes registered memory, then vacancy, then pain... "Gurney... said... nothing. Said to be still. Said to wait... said... you'd come..."

"Before that."

"Nothing. Nothing."

Hiram shook his head, closing his eyes tight. Whatever had transpired the night before, it wasn't for him to know. Mattias honestly couldn't remember.

"Mattias," he said at length, still unable to meet his brother's eyes. "You're confused. You're in pain. I know that you love me... I know that. Maybe you want more than just my word, but it _is_ my word and it's all I can give." _All I'm willing to give._ "Do you understand that? You don't have to... you shouldn't think it necessary to express -- other than words --" Hiram faltered. "What Gurney did to you was evil," he said finally, all pretense of shielding or glossing gone. "Learn to recognize evil, brother. I'm not Gurney. And I'm not... her."

Mattias' face twisted a little, but he didn't cry. Maybe he was dried out. Maybe they both were.

Hiram felt unutterably exhausted again despite his long sleep. He cast weary eyes over Mattias' unkempt and soiled bandages and mentally steeled himself for repeating last night's process. But first, he needed some sign of understanding from Mattias.

"Brother," he said softly, kneeling once again in front of Mattias. He put a broad hand against Mattias' forehead, feeling for fever, then ran it back through tangled hair, dark and rich... like hers had been. "We're all we have," Hiram said, finally meeting Mattias' eyes. "Leave it at that."

Slowly, Mattias nodded. Hiram still wasn't sure he understood, but even if he did for the moment, there was no telling how deep Gurney's scars would run or when the ideas he had implanted would choose to raise their ugly heads again. But at least for now, Mattias was calm and quiet. It was easier to be impersonal with him that way.

"I need to change these," said Hiram, reaching around to touch the base of Mattias' neck, just at the top of the bandages on his back. "Can you handle that?"

Slowly, Mattias nodded, looking away. His expression was more lucid than it had been in several days. Hiram tried not to dwell on the thought that Mattias was much more aware of his surroundings and more capable of analysis than Hiram had been giving him credit for since the day he'd gotten the tattoos. After all, exiles were supposed to be somehow less than human, and social and religious habits died hard. Even though he knew better, even though Mattias was family, Hiram sometimes caught himself treating Mattias like a child.

But wasn't he? All those moments when Mattias did something clumsy, something childlike, something too honest to be true. Maybe it really was a reversion to an inferior state of mind, or maybe taking away his sexuality took away some of the complications and preconceptions that had made him adult. Considering how often children were able to see truth before elders were able to reason it out, it was entirely possible that Mattias' state of mind was not inferior but rather a gift. Or perhaps a curse? To be able to see the truth in people and situations as a child would, but at the same time to be forced into an adult role?

Over the next hour Hiram changed Mattias' bandages, a little faster this time since he'd had time to acclimate to using only one arm. Then he split the last of the food Baruch had left, ignoring Mattias' complaint that Hiram was taking a smaller amount for himself, and refused to look away until Mattias had eaten every bite of what Hiram gave him. It was more than Hiram's portion, of course, but it wasn't as if Mattias could get anything by begging outside like Hiram could. He wasn't above it these days. In fact it seemed quite honorable compared to other things.

It was another couple of hours before Mattias went back to sleep, but Hiram waited. There wasn't anything else to do. He couldn't go out. He didn't know if he could show his face to the world.

Under the surface, twisted things that had barely tasted the light of day were beginning to put down roots and grow, reaching for a full cognizance that Hiram was afraid to give them. Watching his brother sleep for the second time, though, he feared that they would break free in the end -- with or without his consent.  
------------


	3. Scars

Disclaimer: I no own. Please to not be suing now.

Warnings: Spoilers for Scar's backstory, but nothing for the rest of the series. Themes of impurity -- rape, violence, revenge, incest, the guilt of the victim, the lesser of two evils.

Author's Note: I don't know if the end works. I ran out of steam. If it isn't as strong as the rest, just tell me; I probably need to rework it. Also, It occurred to me at one point that I really had a thing about head wounds in this chapter (as opposed to the obvious arm-wound imagery in the first two), and I'm not sure what that says... except that this story felt like it was exploding my brain. So.  
**  
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Chapter Three: Scars**  
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Need drove Hiram out of the tent over the next few days, when the supplies Baruch had left ran out and no one returned with more. He rigged a sling for his broken arm and went out to offer his help wherever he could -- heavy labor was one of those few things he excelled at, and its mindless tedium was a comfort after too much purposeless walking and too many restless hours waiting on his brother. Despite being constantly hungry and exhausted, he kept at it, earning enough grudging favors and tentative respect from the other Ishbalans to keep himself and his brother in food and water and medicine. Mostly the people who didn't know him -- who had been in the camp before Hiram's village had moved in -- were the ones willing to help him, as those who were familiar with Hiram were also familiar with Mattias and the disaster that tended to follow him, and refused to touch either of them.

As Hiram had suspected when he first saw it, the camp was older than most, and more permanent -- to the relative degree that wartime homes were ever permanent. There was a cleft in the cliff-face that led down to an underground reservoir, which supplied water (drinkable when boiled) and naturally irrigated a small leeward hollow against the cliff further to the south that had fertile enough soil to support the most basic of crops. Most people passed on through the camp after a few weeks or months, but it only took a day or so for Hiram to pick out the permanent residents -- a small group, maybe five or six families (none with children, and only two elders among them) who had clearly dedicated themselves to the cause. They were strong people, mostly quiet, but where they passed calm followed. Hiram envied them.

The bandits didn't have full run of the place -- the north end of camp was all but partitioned off for their use, and the outcasts tended to get pushed that direction. Once Hiram had the lay of the place he realized that his and Mattias' tent was much closer to Gurney's stronghold than to the fertile side of camp, which housed the makeshift temple and the lean- tos and tents belonging to the permanent families. Still, no imminent threat loomed from the bandits' area -- no foreign men patrolled the paths and alleys with guns. Apparently they served as welcoming party only, catching each incoming group before they had time to assimilate into the crowd already living in the camp and intimidating them into line. That early, the refugees were too weary to resist, and later on they were too busy to rebel.

Hiram learned that truth first- hand. The fertile hollow and the entrance to the reservoir were both a fair trek away -- the camp was centered against the cliff directly between them. He discovered early on that the permanent families were indiscriminate in who they allowed to work with them, as that was the first place he went looking for some way to earn bread.

Two small fields had been drawn off in the limited space provided by the hollow to allow for at least the minimum crop rotation. It didn't take much for Hiram to find the appointed supervisor for the day and convince him that he could work as well as anyone. For as long as he could stand it after that, Hiram weilded a hoe one-handed, making nearly as much progress as the healthy man and woman on either side of him. The woman gave him a few sidelong looks as they worked through the morning, and when Hiram's screaming body forced him to stop and rest, she stopped as well and vanished beyond the end of the row.

Hiram stumbled out of the field and found an outcropping of stone near the cliff to lean against. After a moment his knees gave out and he sat down hard, sweat trailing into his eyes and under his sling. The edges of his vision were blurred with pure white agony. For a second he thought he might throw up, but knowing he couldn't afford the dehydration, he forced himself to relax instead. The pain pulsed through his arm and up into his shoulder, his chest, his side. He leaned his head back against the stone wall and let it take its course.

"It isn't wise," said a voice above him, as a thin shadow fell over his face. Female, he thought, though his mind wasn't translating reality very well through the haze. He forced his eyes open and looked up.

It was the woman from his row, holding a bowl in both hands. She knelt quickly. Following the movement made Hiram dizzy for a moment. "What?" he asked thickly.

"You're pushing yourself," she said bluntly. "It isn't wise. The fields are too hot in the morning for the wounded or the slow. Direct sun until early evening."

"I have to work," Hiram grated out. "And I can work. Perfectly well."

She shook her head. "With half a body you do the work of one man. With a whole body, one can only imagine. Take it from me, you're slow." She held out the bowl. "Here. Drink."

Hiram tried to take the bowl with his good hand, which was trembling and beginning to blister, but she made a soft clicking noise in the back of her mouth and held the bowl to his lips instead. He drank the blessedly cool water, which was tinged with something bitter that set off the soft echo of memory.

"What's...?" Hiram tried to ask when he was allowed breath again.

"It will help with the pain. The bone is set well, I think, but the sun will bring back the possibility of fever. Stay in the shade from now on."

Hiram grimaced and shook his head. "We have no food," he said, forcing his own determination to win out over the temptation of shade and rest. "My brother is..."

She shushed him almost imperceptibly, giving him a quick, meaningful look. "We know of no one with you. But you're big enough for two, and it's a tough bone to heal. Abidan sends you this in anticipation of a fast recovery and future work." She unslung the satchel she wore crossed over her chest and pulled out a cloth-wrapped bundle. Hiram tried to say something, but she pressed the bundle into his hand, closing his big fingers around it and giving him an intensely earnest look.

"Sol?" she asked more softly, nodding at his arm.

He hesitated, then nodded.

"And Gurney took the exile. Ishbala save him." She made a quick gesture to that effect. "And you... take this, and say nothing. Abidan knows medicine. As far as you should be concerned, he's treating your arm."

Hiram nodded. The pain in his arm and mind had already become more distant, like a persistent waking dream. The bundle weighed heavy in his hand.

The woman stood, then reached down and took Hiram's right arm, helping him up. She looked him over one last time and nodded as if satisfied.

"The reservoir is underground," she said. "To the north of camp. Walk past Gurney's place and you'll see. Good work there manning the firepits to keep the water boiling. Can't drink it straight from the source. Some people died when we first came here, trying that."

So she had been one of the first to settle here. She looked young enough in years, but after all, the war hadn't been that long. Her eyes betrayed her true age.

"How long have you been here?" Hiram asked.

She smiled, a little terse but genuine at the same time. "Six years. My name is Ghazala. Abidan is my husband."

Nearly the whole war spent huddled against this cliff, just surviving...

Hiram nodded solemnly. "I'll remember this," he said softly.

"Until time and war take this country," she murmured, "and there is no more memory." A pause; she looked distant and a little sad, just for a second, until she brought herself back to the moment and cracked her face into another dry smile. "Ishbala's blessing upon you," she said quietly, and gave him a swift but firm kiss on the cheek.

Hiram watched Ghazala walk back into the fields, and kept his eyes on the spot where she'd disappeared for another whole minute before he turned to leave. That afternoon he unpacked the bundle, finding salves and powders with instructions scribbled in heavily annotated Ishbalan on a scrap of paper at the bottom, as well as a good deal more food than could be considered a reasonable ration for one. He prepared the food in silence, and when Mattias woke at the smell, Hiram changed his bandages and applied the new ointments before he would let his brother eat.

That night, both brothers slept a little easier.

-------

Ghazala was right -- the work at the firepits by the reservior was more suited to a one- armed man, but no less necessary or difficult. Being useful always helped Hiram heal, no matter what the nature of the wounds. It was why he'd volunteered to fight, back when their village was still something whole enough to be worth protecting.

On the morning of the fourth day, Hiram tried his hand at hauling water rather than boiling it. The descent into the cliff face didnít affect him at first, but after a while he realized how illusory time itself became down there in the dark. He felt like they'd been walking for hours. Then, when he judged that they were maybe three, four hundred feet down, he began to sense the immensity and weight of age-old stone surrounding him, covering him -- blocking all but one way out. And he realized that he couldn't take that closeness, couldn't live in a place without horizons and sky for miles around. The wide, shallow bubble in the earth that contained the black lake was disorienting -- his hair brushed the roof in some places before the ground dipped downward towards the shore, and the sense of concavity was too much like being inside the center of the earth rather than on its surface.

The men and women around him kept their heads down, going about their work by the faint light from a few torches worked into the walls. On the surface, people at least looked at each other. There was some sense of connection, even if it was desperate or fleeting or hollow. Down here... hollowness was not a question, it was a reality. Ishbalans were a desert people; they lived and died by the sun. Without light --

Hiram got what he could carry and made the trek back to the surface without a word. Emerging from the cliff-face into the midmorning light blinded him for a moment, and he realized he'd been underground for a good two hours. No wonder the process of hauling and boiling water was an unending one.

After that he stuck with the firepits.

Baruch came to find him later that same day. He didn't say much, just helped out as any other worker would, although some of the men nodded respectfully to him as he passed. Late afternoon was passing into evening when he came over to the place where Hiram sat, taking a break to stir one of the cooling fires with a long, charred stick. Hiram barely glanced up when Baruch settled back on his heels next to him.

"How is your brother?" Baruch asked softly.

Hiram put the stick down, satisfied with the intensity of the fire and the steam now billowing off the surface of the water, and wiped sweat from his forehead with his good arm. He didn't offer an answer at first, just looked away, over the dunes.

Baruch sighed. "Gurney has scouts in every direction. One of them came back a few hours ago with news of a caravan passing through the ruins to the north, heading west. It might be Xingese, and to Gurney that means richer pickings than here. There's a possibility they'll be gone in a few days. Whether or not they'll come back, I don't know, but it's not like the camp will be going anywhere."

Hiram turned his gaze back to the darkening field spotted with rare blooms of fire and ethereal clouds of white steam. The earth burned. Why did Baruch think it mattered what Gurney did now? The damage the bandit had intended was done, past.

"Why do the men bow to you?" Hiram asked instead, voicing the only thing that interested him about his former teacher.

Baruch hesitated. "I lead the prayers," he said. "There's a larger tent -- towards the fields. For those who wish to pray with others."

"Religion," said Hiram, "must be the only profession benefitted by war."

He regretted it as soon as it left his lips. When Baruch stood, the chill between them was most certainly not a product of the cooling night air. "Tell that to the murderers living so well off the blood of the people in this camp," Baruch said, tone betraying little beyond disapproval. But that was enough.

Hiram remembered being Baruch's student, remembered respecting the man above all others in the world, and realized that some part of him still respected him -- still believed in Ishbala, still craved salvation, still craved approval. He couldn't look up and meet Baruch's eyes. Instead he assumed the universal hunch of the chastised student, knowing how pitiful and petty it looked but hoping that Baruch would understand the true contrition behind it.

Baruch left. Hiram listened until his heavy footsteps had completely faded into a silence as full as the darkness that now velveted the night sky. When he was sure he was alone but for the other workers still meandering between the fires, he allowed the burn that had been threatening to tear through his throat to rise to his eyes and fill his mind. His sobs were rough but silent.

He wanted justice. He wanted peace. He wanted to abandon his brother and go back to his country and be accepted and walk in the desert with no threat of suffocation and he wanted the sky, he wanted the sky to rip open like it had once, just once, when he was young, and make the desert spill out all its violent vibrant short-lived life like the entrails of the earth so he could smell the visceral combination of rain and sand and vegetation and heat, so unnatural but so beautiful. He wanted the cleansing fire of the sandstorm. He wanted to be deserving of respect, and he wanted to deserve a teacher. He didn't want to be this way anymore, always hungry and exhausted and in pain and ground down into nothing a little more every day by who he was and what he lived with.

He wanted God to love him again. With all of his being, with all of his soul he craved...

He wanted the wanting to stop.

And all of a sudden the sobs broke and he could hardly breathe for the weariness that cut him to the core. He only wanted one thing anymore, and that was sleep. He left without a word to the other men, managed to get himself back to camp and to his tent, and after he'd determined that Mattias could stand to wait another few hours before being checked over again, he collapsed into the deepest sleep he'd had in days.

----------

The next day, he saw Gurney again.

Talk was spreading throughout the camp that Gurney and his men were packing up, that there was a merchant caravan passing by close enough for a hit, that they'd be gone by dawn the next day to catch up with their target near the borders of Amestris. The general air was one of relief -- or rather, the held breath before true relief could be breathed out softly. None of the Ishbalans would be satisfied of their freedom until Gurney was long gone.

Hiram hadn't seen Gurney since the day they'd arrived, and he hadn't seen any of the bandits out of the strip of tents at the north edge of camp. He'd passed it several times on the way to or from the firepits, but the greatest signs of life there consisted of shadows moving inside tents, or a man cooking outside without looking up, or the silhouettes of men standing in the shadows having a smoke after nightfall. Hiram had never let his eyes linger on those tents or the men loitering around them -- he recognized some of them from the ambush outside camp, and wanted nothing to do with them.

That morning, he wasn't even heading towards the reservoir -- he'd gone south instead, to the fields, where he hoped to find Ghazala and ask for more salve for Mattias' back. It was the only part of his brother that hadn't completely healed, though Hiram didn't let himself stop to wonder at the speed of Mattias' recovery. With the rumors of Gurney's imminent departure and the fact of Mattias' growing health, Hiram thought it likely that he'd be leaving the camp fairly soon as well -- to make for the Amestrian border, maybe, where even if the military was made up of devils and abominations, a civilian hospital might be merciful enough to take Mattias without questioning his tattoos.

The southern part of the camp contained the only buildings more solid than tents -- scrap lean- tos and low stone storage caches made to keep things cool in deep shade. It was one of these, its surface just at the level of Hiram's chin, that Hiram was nearing when he noticed the unsettlingly familiar silhouette of a man leaning against the side. Hiram's step faltered as his mind struggled for the split- second it took to place the bandit leader's shadowed face.

Hiram stopped about eight feet from where Gurney stood with a shapeless cloak padding and disfiguring his lean form, hood up but not pulled forward to fully hide his features. How many people would recognize him on sight anyway, Hiram wondered? How many had been directly terrorized by him, rather than by his more violent flunkies? Not many, almost certainly. Besides, Gurney didn't look foreign like some of the others, the ebony- skinned Drachmans and the one pale, desert- burned Amestrian. The only thing off about Gurney was his eyes, dark pools that were so much more unreadable than the typical vibrant Ishbalan red.

Raucous laughter broke Hiram's frozen fight-or-flight reaction. He glanced around at the source of the sound and saw a group of children playing nearby, climbing on and around a stone outcropping. Chasing each other. Hitting each other in the way children did, for fun, to see who could take how much, always toeing that line between playful amusement and darker calculation. Or maybe that was just Hiram projecting his own sinful nature onto the innocent.

Gurney, Hiram realized, was watching the children play. He hadn't moved, hadn't acknowledged Hiram's presence. His expression was unreadable.

Hiram considered walking on. But there was nowhere to go except in front of Gurney's very face, between the bandit and the children, and besides -- Hiram couldn't leave children alone with this... creature watching them. He didn't know if Gurney intended to do anything, but his mere stance unnerved Hiram, like a big cat in repose, not coiled for a leap but still thinking intently about blood.

Hiram scowled to cover up the roil of emotion that wanted to spill out of him. For a second he thought about grabbing Gurney without warning and shoving the back of his skull into the corner of the stone wall he was leaning against. Hiram imagined the crack under his hands, like an egg. Gurney wouldn't be that hard to break.

But it wouldn't be enough. Death was too simple an escape for a man like Gurney. And anything worse was too hard.

"If you touch them, you'll regret it," Hiram said instead, looking straight at his enemy without expression.

Gurney smiled before he looked up. "It's the exile's brother," he said as if to himself. "Good to see you again. How's Mattias?"

Hiram's good fist clenched at the name, and he suppressed thoughts of how Gurney might have pried it free despite the societal conditioning that by now had almost convinced Mattias that he'd never had a name.

"As if you don't know," Hiram said, dangerously low, in response to Gurney's question.

Gurney shrugged. "He held up well. I imagine he's healing fast. Not to mention that fascinating array must be doing its part to help him along."

Hiram couldn't say anything, just tried not to choke on his unspeakable anger.

"If you think I touched him, you're not the measure of a man I thought you were," Gurney said in response to Hiram's seething silence, faintly disapproving. "Sol and his boys tend to pine for the fleshpots of whatever cities they're from. If I denied them a pretty face and something tight to put their dicks in, they wouldn't keep in line. Animals." He took a slow breath and let it out as if it were cigarette smoke he'd just savored, instead of stale dust and hot wind. "But I figured you for a thinking type, Hiram. I figured you for a smart kid. You'd know I appreciate a pretty face as much as the next guy. But a thing of beauty... that's something else. And your brother, well. He's a work of art."

He knew Hiram's name. No anger boiled in Hiram's veins now, only a coldness, and a certainty. Of what, exactly, he wasn't sure, but he'd felt this before. Running to find his brother before the world ended, years ago. Running through dead streets filled with dead bodies in a dead silence on a morning as hot as all the others in this hell, knowing that the world was dropping slowly away beneath his feet and he was falling with cold certainty into a dead nothing.

Gurney had spoken Hiram's name, and, suddenly, Hiram found that didn't want it anymore.

"What do you want?" Hiram asked, his voice sounding fainter than he'd intended to his own ears.

Gurney turned his head to look at Hiram for the first time, and grinned a quick, toothy grin. The big cat, flashing its fangs. "I just want to talk to them, Hiram," he said sincerely, almost earnestly.

The sand was crumbling away beneath Hiram's feet. "Leave us alone," he said, his voice as dead as he felt. "Leave us alone. You've gotten what you wanted."

"Not from you."

"What?"

Gurney moved faster than Hiram could follow, and the next thing Hiram knew was pain in a line of fire across the back of his skull, like a crack through which he expected any moment to feel his brain slide out and splatter the ground behind him. Except that there wasn't ground behind him, there was stone. Gurney had done exactly what Hiram had fantasized about minutes before, and pushed Hiram around and back so that his head had cracked hard against the top edge of the storage cache. Gurney's hand felt feverishly hot against Hiram's chest even through his clothes. The deadness in Hiram lurched and was overturned by a surge of blind fear that he immediately hated himself for succumbing to.

Gurney stepped back and held both of his hands up, palms out, and laughed.

"You're a great kid," Gurney said, clearly still amused with himself. "Great kid, Hiram. I think this is the best bunch I've had through this camp in months, between you and your brother." He lowered his hands and thumped Hiram amiably on his good arm with the same one he'd used to shove him against the sharp corner of stone. Hiram's vision was still blurry and uncertain from the blow.

"Leave us alone," Hiram repeated in barely more than a whisper. He couldn't think. His voice slurred a little.

Gurney's demeanor changed on the drop of a pin again. He turned to stand beside Hiram, arms crossed, leaning Hiram's direction conspiratorially -- as if they were the best of acquiantances. "See those kids, Hiram?" He pointed at the playing children, who seemed to have gotten tired of their game and had settled down to talk or doze in the shade of the outcropping.

Hiram made a sound in the back of his throat. If he thought he could move he might have tried to tear out Gurney's throat with his hands, or press his thumbs into Gurney's eyes until they burst. These things passed through his mind rationally, levelly, without the berserker violence he had felt before.

But he was frozen and Gurney kept talking, soft and so, so assurred of himself.

"They're us, our kids.They don't know they're going to die. They don't know they're trapped, as long as they got five square feet to keep moving around in. That's freedom, real freedom, that unquestioning acceptance of what they've got and what they don't know. You pray to your god that they're us, all right, Hiram? You pray to Ishbala that we can ever be that free."

"Almighty Ishbala teaches us not to fear death," Hiram said numbly.

"Then maybe you better pick a new fat man in the sky to bow down to," Gurney replied, entirely as if it were merely friendly advice. He stood up and away from Hiram, apparently finished with the conversation, and reached out to pat Hiram heavily on the shoulder. "Right, we're off. Xingese to waylay, Sol to make happy. The men are just as tiny as the women in Xing, and almost as pretty, if I hear right. And they're all rich as hell. Foreign bastards."

Hiram said nothing, but kept his eyes fixed on the bandit leader.

"Maybe our paths'll cross again someday, yeah?" Gurney settled his cloak higher around his shoulders and started walking away. He waved over his shoulder. "My regards to your brother."

When Gurney was out of sight, Hiram sank slowly down next to the cache and could not bring himself to move for the next quarter hour. When he finally did, it was with a great deal of stiffness and dizziness that he was grateful for, at least, because the pain and disorientation made it impossible to think about the look of supreme satisfaction on Gurney's face before he'd walked away.

At some point during the conversation the great cat had coiled and sprung, and Hiram had never seen it coming. He felt shredded and spat out in a way he'd never thought possible. And yet hating himself for feeding the monster was just as useless as hating the monster for its nature.

Easier to let the dizziness take over and feel nothing.

Shakily, Hiram made his way onwards, towards the southern fields, towards Ghazala and medicine and some degree of sanity.

------------

Ghazala took him to her husband without a word when she saw the way Hiram staggered as he walked, and the sheen of blood on the back of his neck that was soaking slowly into his clothes. He hadn't thought the blow to his head had been that bad, but Ghazala told him the bloodflow had to be stopped as quickly as possible because his body couldn't afford to divert any energy from his healing arm. Hiram didn't take much in, but he supposed he was grateful for a fast relief from pain for once. Abidan gave him water laced with the same bitter painkiller Ghazala had dosed him with in the fields.

It was the first time he'd seen the elusive medicine man, and Hiram found his solid silence reassuring. Abidan was tall and had the look of a broad-built man whose current relative thinness was unnatural, but not totally unhealthy. He and Ghazala coexisted in the same space with the ease and grace of two people who could not remember life without each other.

Abidan and Ghazala lived in a real building, two low rooms roofed by piecemeal scraps of metal sheeting and rarest lumber that were supported by meticulously contructed stone walls, presumably the work of years of picking away at the cliff wall and moving the stone between shifts in the fields. More lumber had been laid out on top of stacks of rubble to make low surfaces that could be used as tables or benches. Hiram was sitting on one as Abidan treated him, and he touched the rough wood under his fingers, trying to remember the last time he'd seen a wooden door or, buried even further back in the haze of memory, a tree.

He wouldn't be surprised if the couple were the oldest inhabitants of this place.

The dizziness finally started receding -- and, along with it, the sick, heavy pulse of fear that had lingered with the image of Gurney's face, so close to his, and the scorching hand on Hiram's chest that seemed to want to reach in and squeeze his heart. Abidan rubbed something cold onto the back of his head that shocked him back into full sense. The ties of his bandages had to be arranged in awkward angles to keep them firmly in place, but the wound was high enough that the gauze, angled upward, could just cross his forehead without obstructing his sight.

Ghazala was just folding a scrap of paper over a pinch of some precious powder for Hiram to take back when they heard the beginnings of the commotion outside.

Refugee camps were quiet places. Noise meant danger, meant rioting, meant that war had finally found another corner of the world to raze and burn. Any noise in a refugee camp was the sound of the earth falling away.

Abidan looked up at the first sussurus of raised voices that drifted in from the field outside. No shouts, not yet, but they could hear movement en masse, and voices raised as if questioning, growing louder as the source of the disturbance came closer. One set of footsteps had barely distinguished itself from the multitude when the runner to whom they belonged burst through the heavy canvas that hung over the door.

Abidan spoke for the first time in Hiram's presence. "Micah," he said to the flushed and sweating young man who eyes were wide with urgency. "What's happening?"

Micah made a lightning-quick half-bow of respect and kept his eyes fixed on the floor as he gasped, "We don't know, teacher. There was -- a disturbance in north camp. One of Gurney's men fired --" His face screwed up; he couldn't force out the name of something for which there was no name. "There was red light and an explosion," he said instead. "Two men and a woman are hurt. Gurney's man is dead."

Abidan glanced at Hiram almost imperceptibly. "Is the exile involved?"

Micah squeezed his eyes shut and started gasping a prayer, over and over. He could not acknowledge what Ishbala did not acknowledge.

Hiram surged to his feet.

"You aren't --" Ghazala started.

"Go," Abidan interrupted her, directing his low order towards his patient.

Hiram turned to look at the two. Abidan's crimson eyes pierced his being, and his command hung between them, sharp as knives. A breath later, Ghazala inclined her head and added her own murmured "Go" to her husbandís.

He didn't look back, didn't see Ghazala put her hand into Abidan's. He pushed past the shell-shocked messenger in the doorway and fled into the heat and the fields and beyond. His bad arm hampered his balance, but he felt little pain; the bitter drug Abidan had given him coursed through his veins as fast as panic pursued terror through his head and gut.

For the first time in months, Hiram didn't just hope. He _prayed. _

He found them at the natural amphitheater at the base of the cliff. Pairs of red eyes hid themselves behind canvas walls and alley shadows and curled fingers as he passed, and the only Ishbalans he met on the way were rushing past him, away from the scene. He followed the trail of their absence, unable to think, until he hit a wall of people and knew he'd found the source.

The men standing in a semicircle around the small hollow were all Gurney's men, and their presence was all the confirmation his fears needed. Hiram shoved past them without thinking, brushing arms with men whose hands were drenched in the blood of his people, and for a second he felt some connection to them. Their frozen terror was his, their bewilderment and blankness showed on their faces as clearly as Hiram felt the same rising in his throat.

Hiram staggered out of the wall of watching men and saw in a timeless second what had frozen them all. The injured Ishbalans had crawled away, towards the cliff-face or the crowd, as far away from the bloody mound that might once have been a whole person as they could get -- but even that distance wasn't far enough away from the two men still alive in the clearing, Gurney standing tall over Mattias. Hiram's brother was on his knees in front of the monster, shirtless, white pants spattered with blood. Defeated, dying?

But Mattias was looking up, and in the set of his jaw Hiram could see the same determined pride he remembered from a long, hard youth together. And Gurney, though still upright, had a grayish tinge to his skin and a hunch to his shoulders that bespoke a greater pain.

Then Gurney shifted and Hiram saw that there wasn't much left of his left arm. What was missing seemed to have sprayed across the ground and become mixed in the puddle of messy humanity that Hiram guessed was the dead bandit Micah had referred to. Mattias' right arm was bathed in gore, obscuring the tattoos but not hiding them -- they were glowing more brightly than Hiram had ever seen.

Barely a breath had passed since Hiram had laid eyes on them. Gurney lifted a foot to kick out at Mattias, but his balance was off and Mattias grabbed his leg in a slippery grasp, making him stagger and fall. Gurney caught himself on his remaining hand and twisted madly in Mattias' grasp, rolling away and crusting his open wound with sand. Mattias levered himself unsteadily to his feet while Gurney was still reorienting. Gurney managed to lift himself up -- Mattias stumbled towards him, reaching out his bloody arm -- Gurney found his balance in a flash and reached out to grab Mattias' reaching wrist, maybe to pull him forward, maybe to twist and break the bones -- no one would ever know. Mattias' hand slammed against Gurney's face, fingers digging hard into the olive skin, palm smothering the bandit's expression of animal rage, and then his tattoos flared again.

There was a wet, flat sound, a soft burst loud enough to ring in Hiram's ears for the rest of his life.

The wordless scuffle resolved itself into silence. For a second nothing happened.

Then Gurney's fingers slid away from Mattias' slick wrist and he slumped backwards. As his face parted from Mattias' hand Hiram saw the blood trickling from his mouth, his nostrils... his eyes. His eyes were so blank.

Dead.

Mattias's ragged breathing brought Hiram back from the edge of screaming. He looked up from the bandit's corpse and somehow met his brother's eyes just as Mattias turned his head towards his audience.

Something that might have been relief, expressed with something that might once have been a smile, flickered to life in Mattias' blood-spattered face. "Brother," he said hoarsely. "I came looking for you. I couldn't find you."

Hiram choked on nothing. He'd never been so afraid of his older brother.

What happened next registered with far less clarity than Gurney's death had. Voices rose in a rough wave, ascending from shouts to shrieks in the blink of an eye, and Hiram leapt away from his fellow watchers -- Gurney's men. He recognized the man he'd been standing shoulder-to-shoulder next to with a distant horror, but no surprise -- Sol, Sol with the rifle Hiram had never seen out of his hands, Sol with his face twisted into something inhuman.

Mattias lurched forward, hand out, ready to hurt Sol the way he had Gurney, but Gurney hadn't had a gun and Hiram knew Mattias was going to die.

Sweating foreign bodies pressed in all around, some trying to reach Gurney, some trying to catch Mattias, some trying to run --

Sol raised his rifle towards Mattias with a yell; then, somehow, Hiram was between them, bodily forcing Sol back, foot locking behind Solís knee to bring him down, good arm holding the rifle out of the way -- he didn't know how. Desperation lent him impossible strength.

"Bastard! Freak!" Sol was shrieking, at Hiram or Mattias or both. He slammed the trigger down and held it down and some of his own men screamed and bubbled and keeled over in that direction, the bullets spraying indiscriminately among them, but Hiram kept the deadly barrage away from Mattias and that was all that mattered.

Sol twisted, Hiram slipped -- Mattias screamed -- Hiram roared in unformed pain and everything went red for a second, went blank and bloody._  
_

_crack. _

Hiram had Sol's gun by the barrel and Sol was falling. The dent in his skull matched the pattern of blood and whitish matter on the butt of the rifle. His knees hadn't even hit the ground before Hiram swung the makeshift bludgeon down again, connecting with frightening accuracy. The force of it sent Sol sprawling for several feet. He lay where he landed, twisted and limp.

There was a moment when no one noticed. But awareness of death spread quickly through mobs, and followers had some kind of sixth sense for the loss of their leaders. Slowly, voices and hands began to lower. Heads turned. There wasn't a pair of red eyes among them.

Hiram stepped back from the body and the rifle slipped from his hand. It hit the ground with a final thunk. Unarmed, he looked up and met the eyes of the men closest to him. They stared back, weapons lowered, and made no move against him.

Mattias made the first move, stepping forward and placing a hand on Hiram's shoulder. Hiram jerked at the touch, but Mattias' warmth was familiar and he didn't pull away. Pointless to be afraid of his brother now. Pointless to be afraid of anything. Especially death.

Hiram's eyes slid away from those of the staring men, back to his brother. Mattias looked more lucid than Hiram had seen him in years. Hiram put his good arm around Mattias' shoulders and took the easiest first step of his life.

He wasn't afraid anymore.

-----------

"Is it permitted to confess?"

Baruch looked up from the tending of one of the injured Ishbalan men from yesterday's conflict. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly at the unlikely visitor who stood in the entrance to the prayer tent.

"Of course, my son," said Baruch levelly, passing his work over to a helper with a few quiet words and wiping his hands clean on a dirty cloth before pushing himself to his feet. He walked to Hiram, laid a hand firmly on his arm, and led him to a corner away from the scene of healing.

Hiram's eyes lingered on the injured people for a moment before he looked Baruch in the eyes.

"Master, I have always held you and your teachings in the utmost respect --"

"The teachings of Ishbala, my son," Baruch demurred. "I merely serve."

Hiram nodded sincerely at the correction. "Without you to spread the word of Ishbala into my life, I would have been a wretch from the beginning," he said quietly. "His was a strength and wisdom I needed for many, many years. And I believe His was a strength my brother craved also."

Baruch's brows drew down slightly. "Your brother... even before -- well -- he rarely harbored much _respect _ for the faith --"

Hiram shook his head. "With respect, teacher, his faith was among the strongest I have ever known."

Baruch pursed his lips and said nothing, waiting for Hiram to continue.

"He questioned the laws," Hiram said, letting his gaze drift to some middle distance, face directed towards the injured once again. "He has -- he... _had ..._ a scientific mind, and that methodical questioning was the highest respect he could give. And he followed the laws, obeyed every word, until her death started to eat away at him. It wasn't the questioning that sowed the seed of doubt. It was the pain that came later."

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

"Teacher, I still believe. I always have. But I have begun to question, and my mind is not as scientific as my brother's. I _doubt. _ I'm plagued by my weaknesses. My infidel heart asks why Ishbala has sent this terror down on His people, and where in the holy texts He is said to be cruel and arbitrary. My faith that He exists does not diminish, but my hope that He loved me was murdered long ago."

"My son --"

Hiram held up his hand. "The greatest unfairness of it is that my thoughts, a thousand times more heretical and debased than my brother's, have not earned my exile along with him. And his heresy, the crime that brought him to shame, was rooted in a faith so intense that he truly believed that Ishbala would forgive him his use of the Grand Arcanum as a tool by which to perpetuate the life -- _her _ life -- that Ishbala Himself had created.

"But the past is done, and the only choices left now are mine, who deserves them so much less."

Baruch nodded slowly, eyes grave. "I will hear your choice and bless it if I can."

"I choose my family," Hiram said with quiet finality. "I forfeit the blessing extended to me by Ishbala and the protection given by those who speak for Him. I will stay with my brother and call him by the name Ishbala gave him. I will ask for no aid and expect no acknowledgement. I choose exile."

Baruch squeezed his eyes tightly closed. He bowed his head low and took a heavy breath.

After a long moment, he raised his face again and met Hiram's eyes -- for the first time as an equal and a man, rather than as a master to a student. "Take a final blessing, then. One you can never lose or give away." He put a hand on Hiram's shoulder. "You have more of Ishbala's love than you will ever know," he said softly. "Go well."

Hiram laid a hand loosely over his former teacher's. He looked into Baruch's eyes and saw only hardness -- and respect.

He didn't offer thanks, or a goodbye. In the next few days, he saw plenty of Baruch -- with the remaining bandits gone, he and several other leaders had begun organizing the next traveling expedition, forever striving for the sanctuary they believed they would find in the hills. Hiram lent his strength wherever he could. He planned to leave with the expedition, although he and Mattias would be essentially alone among many. It didn't matter -- Hiram just needed to _move.  
_  
He couldn't look at that little hollow under the cliff. The leaderless bandits had moved out to sack the Xingese caravan as they'd already planned, though how successful they would be without a mastermind was questionable. But it was only a matter of time until they fell to infighting, assimilating more young people beaten or coerced into a lifestyle that flew in the face of death, more scarred veterans who wanted to take someone else down with them when they finally bit the bullet, more power-hungry thinkers and movers; and somewhere between the blood and the backstabbing another Sol would be born, another Gurney. They would never die. The stains in the hollow meant nothing. They would never die.

Baruch was the one who removed his splint and sling when his arm healed. Hiram didn't see Ghazala or her husband again.

By the time they moved out, Hiram was still favoring his left arm, but altogether he felt healthier than he had in months -- though he was nothing compared to the miracle that was his brother, if miracle was the right word. Mattias walked taller than he used to, with a light deep in his eyes that Hiram had once believed had gone out forever. His wounds had vanished without a trace, and his tattoos, though they didn't glow, exactly, seemed to have gained a permanent _depth_ as if the blood flowing in the veins beneath the skin were showing through the blackness of the ink.

Hiram could smell the blood on him. On both of them, now.

Some time after they moved on, a sandstorm removed from the camp any stain of proof of their passing.  
-----------


End file.
